Se Habla Espanol

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Se Habla Espanol Summary Tayana Barriaros has written an essay entitled “Se Habla Espanol,” which describes her coming to America, having a language barrier and not fitting in with her Latin Community. She is an established writer who has twenty plus years of publishing novels and writing for different magazine companies. Tayana was born in Guatemala, and moved to Texas at the age of three. From that point on her parents insisted she would only speak English in order to fit into the Anglo society. The story that she told about her life and the challenges she faced are still some of the struggles that she deals with today. Having college-educated parents, unlike the other Latinos, exposed Tayana to better schools where she received a better education. Being around majority Anglo Saxons, and being Spanish was a disadvantage because she was often excluded from consideration for better and higher paying positions. She was a minority, and at times she liked that because she was smart and stood out and refused to accept the stereotypes that were set for minorities. Tayana grew up traveling overseas. Being involved in various activities such as ballet caused her grow up differently than her Latin American counter parts. Fitting in with the American Society meant hiding her culture, and the belief she couldn’t succeed because of her ethnic decent. Her parents wanted to wipe away, what America viewed as a negative Latin culture. She was fine with not speaking Spanish for a while; she felt like she was accepted and did everything to avoid being labeled Spanish. America’s viewpoint was changing regarding one’s ethnic background. It no longer kept her from doing whatever job she qualified to do. Tayana didn’t speak Spanish very well, and felt uncomfortable around groups of people when they were speaking Spanish. Tayana embraced her background and enrolled

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